The Palliser Novels (89 page)

She dressed herself very plainly, simply changing one black frock for another, and then sat herself in her drawing-room awaiting the two gentlemen. It was already past the hour of dinner before her father came up-stairs. She knew that he was in the house, and in her heart she accused him of keeping out of the way, in order that John Grey might be alone with her. Whether or no she were right in her suspicions John Grey did not take advantage of the opportunity offered to him. Her father came up first, and had seated himself silently in his arm-chair before the visitor was announced.

As Mr Grey entered the room Alice knew that she was flurried, but still she managed to carry herself with some dignity. His bearing was perfect. But then, as she declared to herself afterwards, no possible position in life would put him beside himself. He came up to her with his usual quiet smile, — a smile that was genial even in its quietness, and took her hand. He took it fairly and fully into his; but there was no squeezing, no special pressure, no love-making. And when he spoke to her he called her Alice, as though his doing so was of all things the most simply a matter of course. There was no tell-tale hesitation in his voice. When did he ever hesitate at anything? “I hear you are going abroad,” he said, “with your cousin, Lady Glencora Palliser.”

“Yes,” said Alice; “I am going with them for a long tour. We shall not return, I fancy, till the end of next winter.”

“Plans of that sort are as easily broken as they are made,” said her father. “You won’t be your own mistress; and I advise you not to count too surely upon getting further than Baden.”

“If Mr Palliser changes his mind of course I shall come home,” said Alice, with a little attempt at a smile.

“I should think him a man not prone to changes,” said Grey. “But all London is talking about his change of mind at this moment. They say at the clubs that he might have been in the Cabinet if he would, but that he has taken up this idea of going abroad at the moment when he was wanted.”

“It’s his wife’s doing, I take it,” said Mr Vavasor.

“That’s the worst of being in Parliament,” said Grey. “A man can’t do anything without giving a reason for it. There must be men for public life, of course; but, upon my word, I think we ought to be very much obliged to them.”

Alice, as she took her old lover’s arm, and walked down with him to dinner, thought of all her former quarrels with him on this very subject. On this very point she had left him. He had never argued the matter with her. He had never asked her to argue with him. He had not condescended so far as that. Had he done so, she thought that she would have brought herself to think as he thought. She would have striven, at any rate, to do so. But she could not become unambitious, tranquil, fond of retirement, and philosophic, without an argument on the matter, — without being allowed even the poor grace of owning herself to be convinced. If a man takes a dog with him from the country up to town, the dog must live a town life without knowing the reason why; — must live a town life or die a town death. But a woman should not be treated like a dog. “Had he deigned to discuss it with me!” Alice had so often said. “But, no; he will read his books, and I am to go there to fetch him his slippers, and make his tea for him.” All this came upon her again as she walked down-stairs by his side; and with it there came a consciousness that she had been driven by this usage into the terrible engagement which she had made with her cousin. That, no doubt, was now over. There was no longer to her any question of her marrying George Vavasor. But the fact that she had been mad enough to think and talk of such a marriage, had of itself been enough to ruin her. “Things of that sort are so often over with you!” After such a speech as that to her from her father, Alice told herself that there could be no more “things of that sort” for her. But all her misery had been brought about by this scornful superiority to the ordinary pursuits of the world, — this looking down upon humanity. “It seems to me,” she said, very quietly, while her hand was yet upon his arm, “that your pity is hardly needed. I should think that no persons can be happier than those whom you call our public men.”

“Ah!” said he, “that is our old quarrel.” He said it as though the quarrel had simply been an argument between them, or a dozen arguments, — as arguments do come up between friends; not as though it had served to separate for life two persons who had loved each other dearly. “It’s the old story of the town mouse and the country mouse, — as old as the hills. Mice may be civil for a while, and compliment each other; but when they come to speak their minds freely, each likes his own life best.” She said nothing more at the moment, and the three sat down to their small dinner-table. It was astonishing to Alice that he should be able to talk in this way, to hint at such things, to allude to their former hopes and present condition, without a quiver in his voice, or, as far as she could perceive, without any feeling in his heart.

“Alice,” said her father, “I can’t compliment your cook upon her soup.”

“You don’t encourage her, papa, by eating it often enough. And then you only told me at two o’clock to-day.”

“If a cook can’t make soup between two and seven, she can’t make it in a week.”

“I hope Mr Grey will excuse it,” said Alice.

“Isn’t it good?” said he. “I won’t say that it is, because I should be pretending to have an opinion; but I should not have found out anything against it of myself.”

“Where do you dine usually, now you are in London?” Mr Vavasor asked.

“At the old club, at the corner of Suffolk Street. It’s the oldest club in London, I believe. I never belonged to any other, and therefore can’t compare them; but I can’t imagine anything much nicer.”

“They give you better soup than ours?” said Alice.

“You’ve an excellent cook,” said Mr Vavasor, with great gravity; “one of the best second-class cooks in London. We were very nearly getting him, but you nicked him just in time. I know him well.”

“It’s a great deal more than I do, or hope to do. There’s another branch of public life for which I’m quite unfitted. I’d as soon be called on to choose a Prime Minister for the country, as I would a cook for a club.”

“Of course you would,” said Mr Vavasor. “There may be as many as a dozen cooks about London to be looked up, but there are never more than two possible Prime Ministers about. And as one of them must be going out when the other is coming in, I don’t see that there can be any difficulty. Moreover, now-a-days, people do their politics for themselves, but they expect to have their dinners cooked for them.”

The little dinner went on quietly and very easily. Mr Vavasor found fault with nearly everything. But as, on this occasion, the meat and the drink, with the manner of the eating and drinking, did not constitute the difficulty, Alice was indifferent to her father’s censures. The thing needed was that she and Mr Grey should be able to sit together at the same table without apparent consciousness of their former ties. Alice felt that she was succeeding indifferently well while she was putting in little mock defences for the cook. And as for John Grey, he succeeded so well that his success almost made Alice angry with him. It required no effort with him at all to be successful in this matter. “If he can forget all that has passed, so much the better,” said Alice to herself when she got up into the drawing-room. Then she sat herself down on the sofa, and cried. Oh! what had she not lost! Had any woman ever been so mad, so reckless, so heartless as she had been! And she had done it, knowing that she loved him! She cried bitterly, and then went away to wash her eyes, that she might be ready to give him his coffee when he should come up-stairs.

“She does not look well,” said Grey as soon as she had left the room.

“Well; — no: how can she look well after what she has gone through? I sometimes think, that of all the people I ever knew, she has been the most foolish. But, of course, it is not for me to say anything against my own child; and, of all people, not to you.”

“Nothing that you could say against her would make any difference to me. I sometimes fancy that I know her better than you do.”

“And you think that she’ll still come round again?”

“I cannot say that I think so. No one can venture to say whether or not such wounds as hers may be cured. There are hearts and bodies so organized, that in them severe wounds are incurable, whereas in others no injury seems to be fatal. But I can say that if she be not cured it shall not be from want of perseverance on my part.”

“Upon my word, Grey, I don’t know how to thank you enough. I don’t, indeed.”

“It doesn’t seem to me to be a case for thanking.”

“Of course it isn’t. I know that well enough. And in the ordinary way of the world no father would think of thanking a man for wanting to marry his daughter. But things have come to such a pass with us, that, by George! I don’t feel like any other father. I don’t mind saying anything to you, you know. That claret isn’t very good, but you might as well take another glass.”

“Thank you, I will. I should have said that that was rather good wine, now.”

“It’s not just the thing. What’s the use of my having good wine here, when nobody comes to drink it? But, as I was saying about Alice, of course I’ve felt all this thing very much. I feel as though I were responsible, and yet what could I do? She’s her own mistress through it all. When she told me she was going to marry that horrible miscreant, my nephew, what could I do?”

“That’s over now, and we need not talk about it.”

“It’s very kind of you to say so, — very. I believe she’s a good girl. I do, indeed, in spite of it all.”

“I’ve no doubt of her being what you call a good girl, — none in the least. What she has done to me does not impair her goodness. I don’t think you have ever understood how much all this has been a matter of conscience with her.”

“Conscience!” said the angry father. “I hate such conscience. I like the conscience that makes a girl keep her word, and not bring disgrace upon those she belongs to.”

“I shall not think that I am disgraced,” said Grey, quietly, “if she will come and be my wife. She has meant to do right, and has endeavoured to take care of the happiness of other people rather than her own.”

“She has taken very little care of mine,” said Mr Vavasor.

“I shall not be at all afraid to trust mine to her, — if she will let me do so. But she has been wounded sorely, and it must take time.”

“And, in the meantime, what are we to do when she tells us that Mr George Vavasor wants another remittance? Two thousand pounds a quarter comes heavy, you know!”

“Let us hope that he has had enough.”

“Enough! Did such a man ever have enough?”

“Let us hope, then, that she thinks he has had enough. Come; — may I go up-stairs?”

“Oh, yes. I’ll follow you. She’ll think that I mean something if I leave you together.”

From all this it will be seen that Alice’s father and her lover still stood together on confidential terms. Not easily had Mr Vavasor brought himself to speak of his daughter to John Grey, in such language as he had now used; but he had been forced by adverse circumstances to pass the Rubicon of parental delicacy; he had been driven to tell his wished-for son-in-law that he did wish to have him as a son-in-law; he had been compelled to lay aside those little airs of reserve with which a father generally speaks of his daughter, — and now all was open between them.

“And you really start to-morrow?” said Grey, as he stood close over Alice’s work-table. Mr Vavasor had followed him into the drawing-room, but had seated himself in an easy-chair on the other side of the fire. There was no tone of whispering in Grey’s voice, but yet he spoke in a manner which showed that he did not intend to be audible on the other side of the room.

“I start for Westmoreland to-morrow. We do not leave London for the continent till the latter end of next week.”

“But you will not be here again?”

“No; I shall not come back to Queen Anne Street.”

“And you will be away for many months?”

“Mr Palliser talked of next Easter as the term of his return. He mentioned Easter to Lady Glencora. I have not seen him myself since I agreed to go with him.”

“What should you say if you met me somewhere in your travels?” He had now gently seated himself on the sofa beside her; — not so close to her as to give her just cause to move away, but yet so near as to make his conversation with her quite private.

“I don’t think that will be very likely,” she replied, not knowing what to say.

“I think it is very likely. For myself, I hate surprises. I could not bring myself to fall in upon your track unawares. I shall go abroad, but it will not be till the late autumn, when the summer heats are gone, — and I shall endeavour to find you.”

“To find me, Mr Grey!” There was a quivering in her voice, as she spoke, which she could not prevent, though she would have given worlds to prevent it. “I do not think that will be quite fair.”

“It will not be unfair, I think, if I give you notice of my approach. I will not fall upon you and your friends unawares.”

“I was not thinking of them. They would be glad to know you, of course.”

“And equally, of course! or, rather, much more of course, you will not be glad to see me? That’s what you mean?”

“I mean that we had better not meet more than we can help.”

“I think differently, Alice, — quite differently. The more we meet the better, — that is what I think. But I will not stop to trouble you now. Good night!” Then he got up and went away, and her father went with him. Mr Vavasor, as he rose from his chair, declared that he would just walk through a couple of streets; but Alice knew that he was gone to his club.

During these days Mrs Greenow was mistress of the old Hall down in Westmoreland, and was nursing Kate assiduously through the calamity of her broken arm. There had come to be a considerable amount of confidence between the aunt and the niece. Kate had acknowledged to her aunt that her brother had behaved badly, — very badly; and the aunt had confessed to the niece that she regarded Captain Bellfield as a fit subject for compassion.